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Well quite. See Morse and Lewis’ first meeting.

Excellent crossword with some very fun clues. Thanks Deuce. I have a complete grid fill and the theme but apparently unlike others I am baffled by the instruction “After filling the grid…”. In one case at least it does not appear possible and the others create meaningless words. So if the redundant word begins with x and the word is the third word in the clue I would replace the existing third letter with x - but that does not seem to get me anywhere. Have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Chrishardie,
It is possible in all 5 cases if you've identified the correct words. It will leave some non-words but, using your wordsearch skills will reveal the theme of the crossword.

Can anyone help with how the jumbled strings (which I have and understand) related to thematic properties of the entry's checked cells. Other than the top left corner (across) I can't see it for any of them.

Espebe, look at the position of the checked cells for the relevant entries and compare to the image of the theme

Numbskull, thanks. I see. I wonder if the other correspondence between the unchecked letters in the top left with the unscrambled string was an intended red, or indeed alternatively coloured, herring.

Another lovely solve. I particularly enjoy puzzles where the solve informs the end game but the end game clarifies any remaining doubts with the grid or parsing. I couldn't find one of the strings (and it would have been two without a prompt from Simond9x) but once I grasped the purpose of these I was directed to where I should be looking. Naturally, that resolved the parsing of the clue, also. It also helped to take my mind off a knee injury which has me momentarily confined to the house. Thanks, Deuce.